Today when the house was quite with the sounds of napping, I took a pad of pastel paper and my mum’s box of pastels outside to sit and let rainbows smudge beneath my fingers. I haven’t used pastels in a long time and it was fun rediscovering how much I enjoy playing with them! The first page I opened up to already had a sketch on it, one that my mum must have done back when she used to take life drawing classes. It was a nice surprise:

She's good no?

So I sat outside and I took in inspiration, and I ignored mum’s sketch (because I just can not draw like that, I don’t have the patience for it!) and I played. My first page looked a bit strange, I was using a few different techniques…

Now I wonder if I could use a pastel background for some of the pages in my recipe e-book, because I loved the softness of the colours and the way I could blend them together so easily.

The second page I did turned out pretty well. I was making smudgy colour blocks and drawing details over the top…

The only thing I’d change in this picture would be the grass, take a closer look… I’ve darkened the wrong side, so the shadows are all out of whack! Oh well!

Have you tried a new, or old-but-forgotten, craft/art lately? Did you enjoy the experience? I know I certainly enjoyed the freshness of something new!